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The Second Sunday after Easter
And at the beginning, the Sunday after Easter was very stark indeed. The trauma was over. The time of mourning ended. Folks were getting back to their everyday lives. All that remained of Jesus’ followers were a few hysterical women making ridiculous claims that he was alive, and his disciples cowering in fear that, at any moment, they too could end up with the death penalty. We read that they were locked up in a house, presumably in the same upper room in which Jesus had his last supper with them. In the dark, they whispered among themselves about their impending fate. And then, out of nowhere, Jesus appears. “Peace be with you,” he says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” On this, Low Sunday, this is the first thing we need to remember. For the locked doors behind which the disciples hid are not the only walls of fear that imprison people of faith. And however strong and unyielding these walls are, however much the fear may be paralyzing, Jesus appears, and he says, “ Peace be with you.” The Risen Christ, you see, didn’t come back a knocking on Pilates’s door saying: “I.m baaaaack!” He didn’t arrive in Herod’s courts with a band of angels and the peal of trumpets. The resurrected Jesus doesn’t appear in our lives like Superman, or the Terminator, or a celluloid hero. He arrives in our lives at those moments when we too are cowering behind walls of fear, when our hope is crushed, and our confidence is absent. And he says to us, as he said to them: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Back to face the things that terrify us. Back to confront our demons. Back to stand courageous before the powers that seek to undo us. Back to be Christ’s presence in this broken and sin-sick world. And so, with the help of the Holy Spirit and our Lord’s commission, we go back. Robert Fulghum, in his book, It Was On Fire When I Laid On It, tells the story of being present at an international conference at which the famous Doctor of Philosophy, Alexander Papaderos was lecturing. When he was finished, before the gathered dignitaries, Fulghum posed the question to Papaderos: “What is the meaning of life?” There was the usual rustle of paper and nervous laughter, but Papaderos decided to take his question seriously because it was asked in complete sincerity. Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he took out a very small round mirror about an inch in diameter. And then he said: “When I was a small child, during the Second World War, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. On day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of this mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place. I tried to find all the pieces, but it was not possible. So, I kept the biggest piece, and by scratching it on a stone, I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine, in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find. It became a game and then a challenge as I grew, for then I realized it was not just a child’s game by a metaphor for what I may do with my life. I saw myself as a fragment of mirror whose whole design and shape I did not know. With what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world.” Papaderos, you see, understood that he was not that light or the source of it. But the real light is there and it shines in dark places. That is the meaning of life, he concluded. And that is the meaning or ours. On that first Low Sunday, though, there was one who was not with them. And, predictably, he was most skeptical of the lot. Thomas, that patron saint of all doubters, all unbelievers, all questioners, is the disciple most of us resonate with. Especially on Low Sunday. Thomas echoes the timeless questions that come and go within us. Thomas is unsatisfied with the platitudinous pronouncements and triumphal claims. He won’t suffer fools gladly who settle for wishful thinking. The resurrection to Thomas is not about butterflies, furry bunnies, and warm fuzzy feelings. The resurrection instead is about concrete reality. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails, and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Any Christ, for Thomas, who does bear the mark of suffering, any risen Jesus who appears without these wounds is an apparition and a fraud. For Thomas, celebrating Easter apart from recognizing and suffering of this world is anathema, an offense against God and humanity. On this Low Sunday, this is the second thing we must remember. And it is Thomas who reminds us. The risen Christ appears to us with marks of the nails and the scars of his crucifixion. Our God is a suffering God, who identified with our suffering and the suffering of this world. Unless we too can see and touch the risen Christ in this way, unless these wounds continually remind us of the price of God’s love and move us to see and touch the suffering of others and ourselves, all we’re living with is a plastic Jesus. We are sent into the world to be agents of healing and reconciliation, Jesus says. We are to feed those who are hungry, clothe those who are naked, visit those who are in prison, and comfort those who are oppressed. For inasmuch as you have done it the least of these, my brothers and sisters, Jesus says, you have done it unto me. This morning, on this Low Sunday, therefore, may we who are born into the new covenant of reconciliation, in the words of our collect, “show forth in our lives what we profess in our faith..” Amen |
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